Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 33 Opinion of the Court A To make out a §2 “effects” claim, a plaintiff must establish the three so-called “Gingles factors.” These are (1) a geographically compact minority population sufficient to constitute a majority in a single-member district, (2) political cohesion among the members of the minority group, and (3) bloc voting by the majority to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate. Gingles, 478 U. S., at 48–51; LULAC, 548 U. S., at 425. If a plaintiff makes that showing, it must then go on to prove that, under the totality of the circumstances, the district lines dilute the votes of the members of the minority group. Id., at 425–426. 1 The Texas court held that CD27 violates §2 of the VRA because it has the effect of diluting the votes of Latino voters in Nueces County. C. J. S. 191a. CD27 is anchored in Nueces County (home to Corpus Christi) and follows the Gulf of Mexico to the northeast before taking a turn inland to the northwest in the direction of Austin. Nueces County contains a Latino population of roughly 200,000 (a little less than one-third the size of an ideal Texas congressional district), and the court held that the Nueces County Latinos should have been included in a Latino opportunity district, rather than CD27, which is not such a district. The court found that an area centered on Nueces County satisfies the Gingles factors and that, under the totality of the circumstances, the placement of the Nueces County Latinos in CD27 deprives them of the equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. C. J. S. 181a–195a. The problem with this holding is that plaintiffs could not establish a violation of §2 of the VRA without showing that there is a “ ‘possibility of creating more than the existing number of reasonably compact’ ” opportunity districts. LULAC, supra, at 430. And as the Texas court itself found, the geography and demographics of south and